er
night had fallen on the hedges, the clumps of evergreens, the rows
of close-clipped box. A full moon was just showing itself above the
tree-tops, turning the lake into moving silver. Fred rose from his
wicker chair and, crossing to his young bride, touched her hair
fearfully with the tips of his fingers.

"What if we don't know anybody, Win," he said, "and nobody knows us?
It's been a perfectly good honeymoon, hasn't it? If you just look at it
that way, it works out all right. We came here really for our honeymoon,
to be together, to be alone--"

Winnie laughed shortly. "They certainly have left us alone!" she sighed.

"But where else could we have been any happier?" demanded the young
husband loyally. "Where will you find any prettier place than this, just
as it is at this minute, so still and sweet and silent? There's nothing
the matter with that moon, is there? Nothing the matter with the lake?
Where's there a better place for a honeymoon? It's a bower--a bower of
peace, solitude a--bower of--"

As though mocking his words, there burst upon the sleeping countryside
the shriek of a giant siren. It was raucous, virulent, insulting. It
came as sharply as a scream of terror, it continued in a bellow of rage.
Then, as suddenly as it had cried aloud, it sank to silence; only after
a pause of an instant, as though giving a signal, to shriek again in two
sharp blasts. And then again it broke into the hideous long drawn scream
of rage, insistent, breathless, commanding; filling the soul of him who
heard it, even of the innocent, with alarm.

"In the name of Heaven!" gasped Keep, "what's that?"

Down the terrace the butler was hastening toward them. When he stopped,
he spoke as though he were announcing dinner. "A convict, sir," he said,
"has escaped from Sing Sing. I thought you might not understand the
whistle. I thought perhaps you would wish Mrs. Keep to come in-doors."

"Why?" asked Winnie Keep.

"The house is near the road, madam," said the butler. "And there are
so many trees and bushes. Last summer two of them hid here, and the
keepers--there was a fight." The man glanced at Keep. Fred touched his
wife on the arm.

"It's time to dress for dinner, Win," he said.

"And what are you going to do?" demanded Winnie.

"I'm going to finish this cigar first. It doesn't take me long to
change." He turned to the butler. "And I'll have a cocktail, too I'll
have it out here."

The servant left them, but in the Fre